Hi everyone again. I’ve been out of the loop for a while but am now back for more.
Lots has happened since the last post and over the next few weeks I will be writing about real business experiences that just so happen to have crossed my path.
This Blog is all about how not to help your customers and the classic example of this is Royal Mail. They contacted me several months ago about taking advantage of their small parcel service.
The idea is that, if a customer sends out lots of similar parcels, instead of trudging over to the Post office and waiting for ages to be served, the postage could be printed out on a label and the whole lot just handed in to the local Royal Mail office. The alternative is to have Royal Mail collect the bags each day, for a charge of about £500 a year.
Well, as I have started another business that indeed ends up sending out lots of parcels, I thought this service was made for me.
I duly signed up. then everything stopped.
Various staff got in touch with me, made promises and were never heard from again. At last after several calls to the original sales person, I have at last been able to log into our account. I watched the Demo on the site and it appeared to miss out the crucial part of how to print out the labels.
I really want to do business with Royal Mail with their Packet Service but it seems overly complicated and tricky to use. Perhaps it will be easier once I get going with it. Only 3 months have passed with no progress whatsoever.
I have used this experience to look again at how we look after our customers. I am getting back to them much faster and sorting things out for them as much as I can. The result is that the customers do not keep calling us and the issue gets dealt with. Sometimes we have to wait for another company to come back to us which is very frustrating. In the end it always get sorted out.
Postscript: I have decided not to use the Royal Mail Packet Service. If they can’t help me get started, i have no chance whatsoever in them helping me once I get going. As I am spending £50-150 per week on freight that they could have carried, this is a bad move for them and a good move for me – at least I can keep the business moving along.
More real life business stories next week-all the best, Roy Lewis
www.hebridean-liqueurs.co.uk